Painting my ten foot Formula 150

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Nathan

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It has been almost 3 years since I did detailed a thread about rocket finishing and my techniques have evolved a lot since then, so it's time for a new one. This rocket is a Rocketry Warehouse Formula 150 that has been stretched an additional two feet to make it almost ten feet tall. I built this rocket over the winter and then did the painting and finishing this spring after it got warm enough to paint in the garage. The work shown in this thread was done over a period of about 2 months.

Here is the 3 color paint design that I did in OpenRocket. The blue stripes are Ford Mustang Grabber Blue.

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But before we get started, a couple of things about spray paint safety. . .
You need to make sure that you are adequately protected. Use a paint mask with organic vapor cartridges. I always wear a full face respirator and nitrile gloves while spraying. If you paint in a garage or shed, keep a door open and a fan running. This is good enough for spraying normal enamel or lacquer but not for spraying catalyzed urethane enamel, which is spray paint that requires mixing in a hardener. All modern car paint is catalyzed urethane, but the hardener contains compounds that can do serious damage if it gets in your lungs. It can also be absorbed directly through any exposed skin and cause health problems. Spraying catalyzed urethane paint requires a full body suit and a supplied fresh air source.

Okay enough with the safety lecture.

I'll start at the point where I have finished the build and am ready to start painting. The first step is masking areas where I don't want any paint, like on the couplers, motor retainer, nosecone shoulder, or aluminum nosecone tip. I also mask the insides of the ends of the airframe and motor tubes. You can also see in this pic the extra two foot section of black airframe tube that I added to the payload section to stretch the rocket to ten feet tall.

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I'll be painting with an HVLP gun and compressor, but for primer I still use Duplicolor filler primer in rattlecans. No special reason other that that's the primer that I've always used and it's always worked well for me. Since this is a fiberglass rocket there are no spirals or woodgrain to fill so filler primer really isn't necessary; ordinary primer would work fine. It took all 3 cans of primer to do 2 good coats on this rocket.

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After painting is done, the rail buttons will be screwed into locknuts that are attached to the inside of the airframe tube. I plugged the rail button holes with tissue paper to prevent getting paint in the threads.

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Here is the paint set up in my garage. In the background is part of my 240 yard long driveway. Shoveling that in the winter isn't fun.

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The last step before spraying is to wipe down with a tack cloth.

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Here are all the parts after the first primer coat.

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Sometimes spraying primer makes it easier to see imperfections that weren't noticeable before. On this rocket after spraying primer I could see some areas of the fillets that weren't quite smooth and needed more work.

So I spread some Bondo Glazing and Spot putty on the fillets and then sanded them again. Yes it's perfectly okay to put Bondo putty on top of primer.

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After sanding the Bondo the fillets now look perfect.

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I sanded the first coat of primer with 400 grit sandpaper, then sprayed a second coat of filler primer and sanded it again with 400 grit. 400 grit is as fine as you need to go when sanding primer. Using finer sandpaper to sand the primer wouldn't make any difference because the color coat layer will be about 10 times thicker than the 400 grit scratch marks in the primer.

The paint that I will be using for this rocket is Restoration Shop automotive acrylic lacquer, which is sold by TPC Global.

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I will be spraying using an air compressor and an HVLP gun with 1.3 mm tip. When using a paint gun and compressor you should have a water separator attached to the gun. Water in the air tank should also be drained after every use using the condensate valve at the bottom of the tank.

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Some paint (like Duplicolor for example) comes ready to spray, but most automotive paint has to be thinned before spraying. This Restoration Shop lacquer must be mixed 1:1 with lacquer thinner before spraying. Different thinners are used depending on the temperature where you will be working. Fast thinner is for cold days and slow thinner is for warm days. This pic is actually from when I was mixing the blue, which was a warm day so I used slow thinner.

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It's best to start with the lighter colors when possible so the white will go down first. The nose cone and the top of the payload tube will be white. And the two blue stripes will also need a white base coat so I will also spray white on the areas where the blue stripes will be. I'm not masking the white base coat for the blue stripes because that would just create unnecessary paint ridges that would require sanding.

To spray the nose cone, I hang it from the garage door opener and hope nobody pushes the button while I'm painting.

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One nice thing about lacquer is that it dries fast and there is a short wait time between coat. I sprayed 3 coats of white, about 10 minutes apart. The first coat is always a light coat, followed by thicker wet coats.

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The trick to minimizing orange peel is to make sure that the spray gun is adjusted properly. You want the final color coat to be as wet as possible without causing any runs or sags. I make some test spray passes on my big sheet of plywood first to be sure that the air pressure, spray pattern, and paint volume are just right. Then while spraying, keep the gun moving at a constant steady speed and constant distance.

I waited until the next day and then masked for the blue stripes.

Here it is masked and ready for spraying the blue.

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While spraying blue.

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After spraying 3 coats of blue about 10 minutes apart.

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At this point I realized that I made a small mistake. I should not have masked the booster section at all before spraying blue. Since it will be black above and below the lower blue stripe, the lower section should not have been masked until spraying the black. Now I have a paint edge that needs to be sanded down before I continue, otherwise the ridge will be visible under the black paint. Here it is after sanding, problem fixed.

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Now I'll start masking for the black. I have found that the 3M green precision automotive masking tape makes the cleanest lines.

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The plastic that I use for masking is cut from big trash bags. Notice that I am using normal beige masking tape (not blue painter's tape) to tape on the plastic, because I found that painter's tape doesn't stick very well to trash bags. But you have to be careful not to stick the normal beige masking tape to the paint, or it will definitely pull up paint when you remove the tape. The beige masking tape is only stuck to the 3M green tape, not to the painted surface.

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While spraying the black.

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Finished spraying 3 coats of black about 10 minutes apart. Again, the final coat needs to be as wet as possible without causing sags or runs, so that it's as smooth as possible. The crazy pattern on the fin is a reflection off the garage floor.

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All finished with the color coats. Here are the parts in preparation for spraying clear coat. Before spraying clear, make sure that the rocket (and your hands) are perfectly clean. Wipe all parts down with the tack cloth again before spraying.

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The Restoration Shop clear lacquer gets mixed 1:2 with lacquer thinner before spraying. Here are the parts after spraying 3 coats of clear lacquer. Finally all the painting is complete! Starting to look shiny...

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It looks pretty good now but to get The Perfect Paint Job, there is more work to be done. No matter how good you are with a paint gun, there will still be some texture to the paint surface. So if you want a mirror-like finish you need to wet sand and polish the clear coat.

When spraying the clear coat it is necessary to spray at least 3 good coats of clear because about half of that will be sanded off while wet sanding. I wet sand it two steps, first with 1000 grit and then with 2000 grit. I used to just use 2000 grit but it goes faster if you sand it with 1000 grit first.

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After wet sanding is finished the surface should be perfectly smooth but not glossy.

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Wet sanding is a slow process and a lot of work; I spent about 15 hours wet sanding this 10 foot rocket over a period of about 2 weeks. The fins are the hardest part.

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Now it's time to polish. For polishing I use a Porter Cable 7424 dual action polisher for the big areas, but some areas still need to be done by hand. For both machine and hand polishing I use Lake Country CCS foam pads. The pads come it many different firmnesses which are different colors. The firmer pads are more agressive for heavy polishing and the softest ones are used for applying wax and are too soft for polishing. For polishing rockets I use the white pads which are designed for swirl removal and final finish polishing.

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First I polished with Meguiar's #9 Swirl Remover and then with Blackfire Finishing Polish. Swirl remover is a medium cut polish and finishing polish is fine cut polish.

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It takes several iterations of polishing with the Swirl Remover to get it shiny. Each time I polish for about a minute then wipe off the polish with a cotton cloth. I repeat that process until there are no more 2000 grit swirl marks visible. Then once over again with the finishing polish does the trick.

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Polishing doesn't take nearly as long as wet sanding. I did all the polishing over a period of 2 or 3 days. All that's left is to apply a coat of wax or something (I use Blackfire Wet Diamond synthetic sealant), screw on the rail buttons, install the switches in the switch band, and it is FINISHED!

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Very shiny from this angle...

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Looks good from up here too...

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Selfie...

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Fins like mirrors...

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Thanks for watching! :)

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That is one fine paint job. Wow. Thanks for taking us through the steps to achieve a finish like that. Almost makes it too purty to fly. Good luck on your flight. Oz
 
*sigh*. So it's clear to me now that, in addition to getting my ham license, I'll also be getting into HVLP. Estes is such a gateway drug.
 
Unreal Nathan,,,
There is no doubt you are the paintmaster ...
I have a polishing machine but it's an older one..
It has no speed control and spins too fast..
I KNOW you weren't spitting compound all over that clean garage,, lol...

Super work as always man...

Teddy
 
I love the Restoration Shop! Great paint and reasonable prices. Nice job on the rocket.

Yeah I like it too, that was the first time that I have used Restoration Shop paint. I'm almost ready to start painting my next rocket which will be metallic purple Restoration Shop lacquer.

Nice Cayman too!

It's not a Cayman. It's a 1972 Dodge Dart disguised as a Carrera S.

*sigh*. So it's clear to me now that, in addition to getting my ham license, I'll also be getting into HVLP. Estes is such a gateway drug.

You don't really need a HVLP spray gun, I have gotten results just as good with rattle cans. The main reason that I switched to a paint gun is the better selection of paint colors available.
 
Ummmm,

To digress, the prettier the rocket, the faster the paint dings and blemishes show up. If one avoids hangar rash, the rocket stays perfectly pretty till the first flight.:wink::facepalm: Kurt
 
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That is a sweet-looking rocket!

Can some of these techniques be adapted for us small-time, rattle can painters on a budget? My paint jobs aren't bad, but I'm always trying to get smoother rockets.
 
IN your original post you state you are using a HPLV gun (high pressure low volume). Others have commented about using HVLP (high volume low pressure) guns. Just curious if you have a typo and used a HVLP gun or if infact you used a HPLV gun?
 
Yes that was a typo. Thanks, I'll correct it.

Ah ok, I do believe there is a such thing as HPLV gun and was purely curious as to wich one you used. Your paint looks great! Thanks for sharing your tips and techniques with us.
 
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